Ajuga Genevensis L

Stem 6-18 inches high, erect, simple, very woolly throughout. Leaves oblong, woolly on both sides, crenate or dentate; stemleaves scarcely smaller than root-leaves. Flowers deep blue, handsome, rarely pink, in a long, irregular spike. Bracts crenate, or trifid, often bluish. Calyx woolly, with lanceolate teeth, longer than the tube.

Dry places, especially on limestone hills. May to August.

Distribution

Europe, Western and Northern Asia.

This beautiful plant is much more worth cultivating in gardens and on rockeries than the last, which figures in most nurserymen's catalogues. Bentham, in his Handbook of the British Flora, combined the two species under A. genevensis L. and the "Kew Hand-list," fell into the same error. The two plants are quite distinct, and pyramidalis cannot be considered even an Alpine variety of the other.

Ajuga Reptans L. Common Bugle

This well-known and widely spread plant is as frequent in the lower Swiss mountains as in England. The plant is glabrous. Leaves ovate or obovate, crenate, wrinkled and shining above. Flowers blue, or rarely pink or white. Known by its long, leafy stolons.

Wet meadows and woods. May, June.

Distribution

Europe, from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia; Western Asia, Algeria.

Teucrium L. Germander

Herbs or under-shrubs, varying much in habit. Flowers few in each whorl. Corolla apparently without an upper lip, the 2 upper lobes forming 2 small teeth, one on each side of the base of the lower lip, which has thus 5 lobes. Stamens 4, protruding between the two upper teeth of the corolla.

A large genus spread all over the globe.

Teucrium Montanum L

Stock woody, sending out many procumbent stems and forming great mats sometimes a foot across, densely covered with small leaves and yellowish white flowers, which grow in terminal heads. Leaves linear-lanceolate, entire, white tomentose beneath; lower leaves oblong. All the leaves are green above and slightly rolled in at the borders.

Rocks and limestone hills; common, and extending well into the Alpine zone. July, August.

Distribution

Central and Southern Europe; Asia Minor.

Teucrium Pyrenaicum L

Almost woody at the base, tufted, softly woolly. Stem slender, procumbent, rooting at the base. Leaves nearly orbicular, deeply crenate. Flowers large, upper lip purple, lower lip yellow, toothed.

Flowering cymes in dense, terminal heads. Calyx hairy, green, with lanceolate, acute teeth, rather shorter than the tube.

Rocks and dry hillsides on limestone; very local. June to September.

Distribution

Pyrenees, Landes, Spain, Isere in Dauphiny.

Hyssopus L. Hyssop

Though not the Biblical Hyssop.

Flowers deep blue or violet, handsome, in terminal spikes. Leaves oblong or linear-lanceolate, entire, smooth, sub-sessile, with glandular dots, 1-nerved. Aromatic plants with woody base, growing in tufts.

There are 5 or 6 closely allied species native in the Mediterranean region, Southern Alps, and Western Asia. Often cultivated.